


Hero

by xxx_cat_xxx



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Endgame, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers Paints, Stucky - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting, my one and probably only stucky fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 16:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19113736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/pseuds/xxx_cat_xxx
Summary: It was the fight of their lives. And later, when everything is over, they sit on the porch of Steve’s old house in the suburbs and he won’t let go of Bucky’s hand.-or-My one and probably only Stucky fic.





	Hero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Builder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/gifts).



> This is a birthday fic for my dear friend and wonderful author Laur. Thank you to [Whumphoarder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whumphoarder/pseuds/whumphoarder) for beta reading.

  


_Let me go_  
_I don’t wanna be your hero_  
_I don’t wanna be a big man_  
_Just wanna fight like everyone else_

*  


It was the fight of their lives. And later, when everything is over, when the blood has been washed off their bodies, the wounds have been bandaged, the tears have been shed and an illusion of peace has been created, they sit on the porch of Steve’s old house in the suburbs and he won’t let go of Bucky’s hand.  


It’s all there, relief and grief and an overwhelming feeling of surreality as if the world is struggling to slip back into the place where it was five years ago like into an outgrown coat, knowing it can never really fit in again.

“It should have been me,” Steve says, not for the first time that night. Because the guilt is eating him up inside. Because he can’t shake the memory of how Tony looked at him the day Steve asked him to give everything up, his daughter in his arms like a shield between him and the chance Steve knew he wouldn’t be able to turn down. “I was ready.”

“No, Steve.” And Bucky, who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong most of the time, who has just returned from the dead and still looks like he might fade away and rejoin them any minute, Bucky seems sure, so much surer than Steve is, that they deserve to be alive.

“It should have been nobody,” he says, and grips Steve’s hand tighter. “None of this is right. None of these deaths.” 

“It’s like any war,” Steve realises with a familiar surge of being drowned by the inevitability of it all. It occurs to him that time is not a straight line, it’s a circle that will always catch up with you. There are things you cannot run away from.

“Yes,” Bucky agrees, staring out into the night with the tensed attentiveness of a soldier who doesn’t belong in the quiet New York suburbs, and Steve doesn’t have words to express how much he’s missed him.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Steve says. “It still feels like the wrong century, after all these years.”

Bucky turns his head to give him a once-over, and Steve knows he understands. “You’ll have to go. You’ll leave again.”

“It will only be a few minutes for you,” Steve reassures. But he can’t bring himself to look into Bucky’s eyes.

*

And then it’s days after Tony’s funeral and they are standing in the forest and Bucky looks at him again in a way that makes Steve feel like he can read his soul. He breaks the eye contact just a moment before he won’t be able to do what he has to. 

He’s always been so much better at fulfilling his duties than at listening to his heart.

*

He returns the stones, one by one. 

It takes months. Months spent alone, deliberating, weighing his options. It’s the first time in his life that his future is truly open-ended, depending only on his own decisions, and he doesn’t know how to deal with that.

The past feels like a place he’s never left, familiar and slightly claustrophobic all the same. It’s a smaller world, a slower time, but it’s his. He’s finally back to where he wanted to be, all those years.

And once or twice he thinks about finding the Bucky of this reality, rescuing him from the Hydra agents that might be torturing him this very second. But more often he thinks about the other Bucky, his Bucky, who has been broken almost beyond repair, and he feels a longing that he’s never known before. 

And then he thinks about Peggy and he understands what he has to do. 

He knows the house when he sees it. Everything about it screams her name. 

They dance.

He kisses her.

For a second it feels like everything he’s ever wanted. But then it feels wrong, so wrong, and that’s the moment when he knows where he belongs. It took him until now, all these years, to become certain. 

He bends forward until his lips brush her cheek.

“I wish you all the happiness in the world,” he whispers, and he means it. 

*

Bucky is waiting in the forest. For the first time since the battle there’s something like a smile on his face. It’s been only a minute for him, but he looks at Steve as if he hasn’t seen him in years, as if he has become another person. And maybe he has. Because finally, once and for all, Steve is exactly where he wants to be.

He takes off the time-traveler’s watch, nods at Bruce and Sam, and steps down from the platform. And then he kisses Bucky like it’s the last day of their lives. 

*

It should all be good, from then. The happy ending finally found. But it’s Bucky, and it’s Steve, so nothing ever comes easy. 

Some days are cursed even before they get out of bed. When Bucky is listless, tired in a way that years of sleep cannot fix. When his answer to any of Steve’s questions is a shrug. 

_What do you want to eat?_

_(I don’t know.)_

_Do you want to go for a walk? To the gym? Do you want to drive to the sea?_

_(I don’t know.)_

_Why can’t I make him happy? Am I not enough?_

Sometimes Steve almost wishes for another battle, just to give them a purpose, to fill those empty days and make them meaningful.

There are the nightmares, the panic attacks, the flashbacks. The phantom pain in Bucky’s stump arm. The moments when he can’t seem to remember whether he wants to sleep with Steve or strangle him. There are times when Steve wakes up at night and sees the Winter Soldier sitting hunched over on the edge of the bed, his eyes cold and hard, everything about him screaming _‘Leave me alone’_. 

Steve doesn’t.

Then there’s the evening when Steve finds Bucky on the bridge overstretching the Hudson, a gun pressed to his temple, tears streaming down his face. 

“I didn’t want to do it,” Bucky tells him later, hunched over the toilet bowl and retching emptily as if his body is trying to get rid of the memories together with the bile. He is pale and shivering, his cheekbones standing out in his haggard face. His voice sounds hoarse and old. “I just wanted to know that I still have the option.”

And that night even Steve is lost for words of comfort. So he just offers a glass of water and holds Bucky’s hair out of his face when he brings it back up minutes later, silently wishing that he could take all the pain on himself. 

*

But there are other days as well. They paint the house, plant fruit trees and vegetables in the garden, buy a porch swing and spend hours trying to set it up. Sam comes over and they play card games until deep into the night. They go to lay flowers on Nat’s grave, and Bucky’s hand finds his without Steve ever having to ask for it. 

Steve starts drawing again. He draws Nat, and Thor, and the team, memories from their time before. 

One day, he draws Tony, as he remembers him from his wedding day, the happiest he’s ever seen him. Steve hesitates for weeks, but then he finally sends the drawing to Pepper. She replies with a short note and a photo showing it hanging in the living room of their lake house, traces of tears on the page. 

It’s not fine. It’s not forgiveness. But it’s a beginning. 

Steve draws nature then - woods and deer and birds. And he draws portraits of Bucky - so many that he has to buy a wooden chest to store them all. Some show him sleeping, some sitting on the porch swing, staring into the sky. Some have him naked (Bucky teases Steve about those to no end, but he’s also kind of smug about it), and a few have him smiling his rare smile.

*

It’s years later when Steve finds him again at the Hudson, weighing the gun in his hand. “I always needed the knowledge that I can do it if I have to,” he says, and his eyes are calm and warm. “But not anymore.” 

He throws the gun away. They stare at the water until the ripples subside.

Maybe it’s not peace. Maybe that’s just not something they were made for. But Steve’s got Bucky back, and that’s the closest to happiness he’s ever been. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed. The lyrics at the beginning are taken from the song _Hero_ by Family of the Year. 
> 
> I usually write Tony Whump and Irondad stuff, if you're interested in checking out my other fics. Here's my [tumblr.](https://xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com/)


End file.
